Luminescence is a phenomenon in which energy is specifically channeled to a molecule to produce an excited state. Return to a lower energy state is accompanied by release of a photon (hγ). Luminescence includes fluorescence, phosphorescence, chemiluminescence and bioluminescence. Bioluminescence is the process by which living organisms emit light that is visible to other organisms. Luminescence may be represented as follows:A+B→X*+YX*→X+hv,where X* is an electronically excited molecule and hγ represents light emission upon return of X* to a lower energy state. Where the luminescence is bioluminescence, and creation of the excited state is derived from an enzyme catalyzed reaction. The color of the emitted light in a bioluminescent (or chemiluminescent or other luminescent) reaction is characteristic of the excited molecule, and is independent from its source of excitation and temperature.
An essential condition for bioluminescence is the use of molecular oxygen, either bound or free in the presence of a luciferase. Luciferases, are oxygenases, that act on a substrate, luciferin, in the presence of molecular oxygen and transform the substrate to an excited state. Upon return to a lower energy level, energy is released in the form of light (for reviews see, e.g., McElroy et al. (1966) in Molecular Architecture in Cell Physiology, Hayashi et al., eds., Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J., pp. 63-80; Ward et al., Chapter 7 in Chemi-and Bioluminescence, Burr, ed., Marcel Dekker, Inc. NY, pp. 321-358; Hastings, J. W. in (1995) Cell Physiology Source Book, N. Sperelakis (ed.), Academic Press, pp 665-681; Luminescence, Narcosis and Life in the Deep Sea, Johnson, Vantage Press, NY, see, esp. pp. 50-56).
Though rare overall, bioluminescence is more common in marine organisms than in terrestrial organisms. Bioluminescence has developed from as many as thirty evolutionarily distinct origins and, thus, is manifested in a variety of ways so that the biochemical and physiological mechanisms responsible for bioluminescence in different organisms are distinct. Bioluminescent species span many genera and include microscopic organisms, such as bacteria (primarily marine bacteria including Vibrio species), fungi, algae and dinoflagellates, to marine organisms, including arthropods, mollusks, echinoderms, and chordates, and terrestrial organisms including annelid worms and insects.
Assays Employing Bioluminescence
During the past twenty years, high-sensitivity biochemical assays used in research and in medicine have increasingly employed luminescence and fluorescence rather than radioisotopes. This change has been driven partly by the increasing expense of radioisotope disposal and partly by the need to find more rapid and convenient assay methods. More recently, the need to perform biochemical assays in situ in living cells and whole animals has driven researchers toward protein-based luminescence and fluorescence. The uses of firefly luciferase for ATP assays, aequorin and obelin as calcium reporters, Vargula luciferase as a neurophysiological indicator, and the Aequorea green fluorescent protein as a protein tracer and pH indicator show the potential of bioluminescence-based methods in research laboratories.
Bioluminescence is also beginning to directly impact medicine and biotechnology; for example, Aequorea green fluorescent protein (GFP) is employed to mark cells in murine model systems and as a reporter in high throughput drug screening. Renilla luciferase is under development for use in diagnostic platforms.
Bioluminescence Generating Systems
Bioluminescence, as well as other types of chemiluminescence, is used for quantitative determinations of specific substances in biology and medicine. For example, luciferase genes have been cloned and exploited as reporter genes in numerous assays, for many purposes. Since the different luciferase systems have different specific requirements, they may be used to detect and quantify a variety of substances. The majority of commercial bioluminescence applications are based on firefly (Photinus pyralis) luciferase. One of the first and still widely used assays involves the use of firefly luciferase to detect the presence of ATP. It is also used to detect and quantify other substrates or co-factors in the reaction. Any reaction that produces or utilizes NAD(H), NADP(H) or long chain aldehyde, either directly or indirectly, can be coupled to the light-emitting reaction of bacterial luciferase.
Another luciferase system that has been used commercially for analytical purposes is the Aequorin system. The purified jellyfish photoprotein, aequorin, is used to detect and quantify intracellular Ca2+ and its changes under various experimental conditions. The Aequorin photoprotein is relatively small (˜20 kDa), nontoxic, and can be injected into cells in quantities adequate to detect calcium over a large concentration range (3×10−7 to 10−4 M).
Because of their analytical utility, luciferases and substrates have been studied and well-characterized and are commercially available (e.g., firefly luciferase is available from Sigma, St. Louis, Mo., and Boehringer Mannheim Biochemicals, Indianapolis, Ind.; recombinantly produced firefly luciferase and other reagents based on this gene or for use with this protein are available from Promega Corporation, Madison, Wis.; the aequorin photoprotein luciferase from jellyfish and luciferase from Renilla are commercially available from Sealite Sciences, Bogart, Ga.; coelenterazine, the naturally-occurring substrate for these luciferases, is available from Molecular Probes, Eugene, Oreg.). These luciferases and related reagents are used as reagents for diagnostics, quality control, environmental testing and other such analyses.
Because of the utility of luciferases as reagents in analytical systems and the potential for use in high throughput screening systems, there is a need to identify and isolate a variety of luciferases that have improved or different spectral properties compared to those presently available. For all these reasons, it would be advantageous to have luciferases from a variety of species, such as Gaussia and various Renilla species available.
Fluorescent Proteins
Reporter genes, when co-transfected into recipient cells with a gene of interest, provide a means to detect transfection and other events. Among reporter genes are those that encode fluorescent proteins. The bioluminescence generating systems described herein are among those used as reporter genes. To increase the sensitivity bioluminescence generating systems have been combined with fluorescent compounds and proteins, such as naturally fluorescent phycobiliproteins. Also of interest are the fluorescent proteins that are present in a variety of marine invertebrates, such as the green and blue fluorescent proteins, particularly the green fluorescent protein (GFP) of Aequorea victoria. 
The green fluorescent proteins (GFP) constitute a class of chromoproteins found only among certain bioluminescent coelenterates. These accessory proteins are fluorescent and function as the ultimate bioluminescence emitter in these organisms by accepting energy from enzyme-bound, excited-state oxyluciferin (e.g., see Ward et al. (1979) J. Biol. Chem. 254:781-788; Ward et al. (1978) Photochem. Photobiol. 27:389-396; Ward et al. (1982) Biochemistry 21:4535-4540).
The best characterized GFPs are those isolated from the jellyfish species Aequorea, particularly Aequorea victoria (A. victoria) and Aequorea forskålea (Ward et al. (1982) Biochemistry 21:4535-4540; Prendergast et al. (1978) Biochemistry 17:3448-3453). Purified A. victoria GFP is a monomeric protein of about 27 kDa that absorbs blue light with excitation wavelength maximum of 395 nm, with a minor peak at 470 nm, and emits green fluorescence with an emission wavelength of about 510 nm and a minor peak near 540 nm (Ward et al. (1979) Photochem. Photobiol. Rev 4:1-57). This GFP has certain limitations. The excitation maximum of the wildtype GFP is not within the range of wavelengths of standard fluorescein detection optics.
The detection of green fluorescence does not require any exogenous substrates or co-factors. Instead, the high level of fluorescence results from the intrinsic chromophore of the protein. The chromophore includes modified amino acid residues within the polypeptide chain. For example, the fluorescent chromophore of A. victoria GFP is encoded by the hexapeptide sequence, FSYGVQ, encompassing amino acid residues 64-69. The chromophore is formed by the intramolecular cyclization of the polypeptide backbone at residues Ser65 and Gly67 and the oxidation of the α-β bond of residue Tyr66 (e.g., see Cody et al. (1993) Biochemistry 32:1212-1218; Shimomura (1978) FEBS Letters 104:220-222; Ward et al. (1989) Photochem. Photobiol. 49:62S). The emission spectrum of the isolated chromophore and the denatured protein at neutral pH do not match the spectrum of the native protein, suggesting that chromophore formation occurs post-translationally (e.g., see Cody et al. (1993) Biochemistry 32:1212-1218).
In addition, the crystal structure of purified A. victoria GFP has been determined (e.g., see Ormö (1996) Science 273:1392-1395). The predominant structural features of the protein are an 11-stranded β barrel that forms a nearly perfect cylinder wrapping around a single central α-helix, which contains the modified p-hydroxybenzylideneimadaxolidinone chromophore. The chromophore is centrally located within the barrel structure and is completely shielded from exposure to bulk solvent.
DNA encoding an isotype of A. victoria GFP has been isolated and its nucleotide sequence has been determined (e.g., see Prasher (1992) Gene 111:229-233). The A. victoria cDNA contains a 714 nucleotide open reading frame that encodes a 238 amino acid polypeptide of a calculated Mr of 26,888 Da. Recombinantly expressed A. victoria GFPs retain their ability to fluoresce in vivo in a wide variety organisms, including bacteria (e.g., see Chalfie et al. (1994) Science 263:802-805; Miller et al. (1997) Gene 191:149-153), yeast and fungi (Fey et al. (1995) Gene 165:127-130; Straight et al. (1996) Curr. Biol. 6:1599-1608; Cormack et al. (1997) Microbiology 143:303-311), Drosophila (e.g., see Wang et al. (1994) Nature 369:400-403; Plautz (1996) Gene 173:83-87), plants (Heinlein et al. (1995); Casper et al. (1996) Gene 173:69-73), fish (Amsterdam et al. (1995), and mammals (Ikawa et al. (1995). Aequorea GFP vectors and isolated Aequorea GFP proteins have been used as markers for measuring gene expression, cell migration and localization, microtubule formation and assembly of functional ion channels (e.g., see Terry et al. (1995) Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 217:21-27; Kain et al. (1995) Biotechniques 19:650-655). The A. victoria GFP, however, is not ideal for use in analytical and diagnostic processes. Consequently GFP mutants have been selected with the hope of identifying mutants that have single excitation spectral peaks shifted to the red.
In fact a stated purpose in constructing such mutants has been to attempt to make the A. victoria GFP more like the GFP from Renilla, but which has properties that make it far more ideal for use as an analytical tool. For many practical applications, the spectrum of Renilla GFP is preferable to that of the Aequorea GFP, because wavelength discrimination between different fluorophores and detection of resonance energy transfer are easier if the component spectra are tall and narrow rather than low and broad (see, U.S. Pat. No. 5,625,048). Furthermore, the longer wavelength excitation peak (475 nm) of Renilla GFP is almost ideal for fluorescein filter sets and is resistant to photobleaching, but has lower amplitude than the shorter wavelength peak at 395 nm, which is more susceptible to photobleaching (Chalfie et al. (1994) Science 263:802-805).
There exists a phylogenetically diverse and largely unexplored repertoire of bioluminescent proteins that are a reservoir for future development. For these reasons, it would be desirable to have a variety of new luciferases and fluorescent proteins, particularly, Renilla reniformis GFP available rather than use muteins of A. victoria GFP. Published International PCT application No. WO 99/49019 (see, also, allowed U.S. application Ser. No. 09/277,716) provides a variety of GFPs including those from Renilla species. It remains desirable to have a variety of GFPs and luciferases available in order to optimize systems for particular applications and to improve upon existing methods. Therefore, it is an object herein to provide isolated nucleic acid molecules encoding Renilla reniformis GFP and the protein encoded thereby. It is also an object herein to provide bioluminescence generating systems that include the luciferases, luciferins, and also include Renilla reniformis GFP.